A teenage girl wakes up in a normal, everday suburb to a normal, everyday schoolday. She lives a happy life, with a loving older, sixteen-year-old sister and two middle-aged parents who love to spoil her and give her everything her heart desires.
She hangs out with a group of fifteen or so close friends, most of which she has known since kindergarten or first grade. Every day, during every class period, she has people to talk to, whether she really cares talking to them or not. You could consider her fairly sociable, and extremely kind and polite, and that's exactly what she wants you to think.
All of the teachers love her. All of the girls think she's just another nerd who tries to hard and will never be as pretty as them. The boys never give her a second glance, simply because she's not another model who dominates their minds every second of the day. She tries her best in everything she does, always having a smile on her face and a laugh at the ready, never for a second letting down her cheerful countenance.
Even to one of the people she hates the most, she can sit for hours on the phone with, patiently listening and occasionally putting in a "Yeah" or "I know" or sometimes a "Oh, you're completely right. It's absolutely unfair!" She has an opinion on everything, but if someone else has a more convincing argument than she does, she doesn't try to top it, instead shrugging and agreeing that they have a point, but never wavering in her views.
She has friends from all the neighboring middle schools due to her countless before and after school activities. She's a phenomenal actress, and a talented singer. She kids around with people, she teases them playfully, but she always has a kind word to comfort them with, and will always object if someone puts themself down.
The odd thing is, none of this is true.
This girl wakes up every morning at exactly 7:07 in the morning for no apparent reason, wondering why she hasn't lost it yet. She spends every waking moment with her family secretly despising them, wondering to herself why they haven't noticed her sour mood in the past months, her recent patterns as an insomniac, or anything out of the ordinary. She doubts they care - and they probably didn't ever, anyway.
Sure, she does spend a good amount of time with a group of about fifteen or so people that, if she wanted, she could call friends. She spends time with them to take her mind off of her troubles, to try to forget everything. That's why she always has to talk to someone in class, too, even if it risks getting herself in trouble or being disliked. She's afraid to be left alone to her thoughts, as they have almost gotten her killed many times before. She's sociable and polite and kind because she's trying her hardest to be someone she's not.
The teachers don't really love her academic skills, even if they are outstanding. They're worried she's on the verge of breaking down, and that the only reason she's keeping up her studies is to lower their suspicions. And they're right. The girls think she's a nerd because she's spent such a hard time trying to keep her grades up that it's become part of who she is. No boy would ever think of looking at her twice because she's just not attractive - she possibly could be, although she never gives a thought to her appearance to begin with. She just doesn't care.
For the person she hates the most, she's waiting for the day she can prove to her that she's not melodramatic, or a hypochondriac, or any of the other nasty things she's called her behind her back before because she's missed a day of school once or twice in a school year or cried once more than what she thought was necessary when her grandfather died. She has such strong opinions on things because she wants people to think she cares, although, as you've already heard, isn't true.
She has no friends. She has people who think they are her friends that go to other schools. They trust her, and confide in her, and she in turn jokes with them and smiles and pretends to be cheerful for their benefit. People consider her to be skilled in singing simply because she's one of the three or four girls in the school who are proud to sing, although this is really just another diversion for her, to forget everything that's wrong in her life. She's a phenomenal actress because, although she can't act for her life when put on a stage, she can pull off a character.
Every morning, she acts like everything's fine. She acts like she has the best life, that she's privileged - and she's not saying she's not - and she lets people get close to her and become her friends, because she needs the support. Because, without it, she would fall apart. Don't you see? Her whole life is like one big play. Nothing is real, and there's never an intermission between acts, no matter how much she wants there to be one.
As someone once said to this girl, "You're living behind a mask." He's right. But it's not like she can trust anyone by telling the truth. She already tried that before. The one person she thought she could trust proved to her in about a second that she shouldn't have ever considered it.
